Oh how nice it was to be 25 years old walking around with six pack abs, six percent body fat and a metabolism like a Maybach Exelero engine. If only I could be 25 years old forever. I could still eat whatever I want and exercise when the mood hits me.  Unfortunately life doesn’t quite work like that. Father time eventually catches up with the majority of us. Our metabolism slows down to the speed of a lawn mower engine once we pass the age of 25, and the junk food we used to burn off in our sleep begins to accumulate in our bodies like garbage in a landfill if we aren’t on a regular exercise routine.

It’s one of the cruel ironies of physiology and life that as we get older it becomes harder to give up all of those food addictions that we developed in our youth and even more difficult to burn off all of the food that we consume. Most of us just throw our hands in the air and stop trying— accepting the accumulating pounds of fat surrounding our organs and clogging our arteries as the way it’s supposed to be. We even make excuses. We’re simply too busy to exercise or eat properly.

It’s really easy to get overweight and unhealthy. Food with low nutritional value, that is high in fat, cholesterol and sugar is both cheap and easily obtainable. And when you combine that with a lifestyle where there is little or no exercise you have a recipe for not only obesity, but an onslaught of diseases and a lower quality of life. In my case as easy as it was to put on the extra pounds, it has taken a complete overhaul in my lifestyle and mindset to shed the weight and get on the right road to health and fitness.  The older you get and the longer you wait to start exercising—the harder it becomes, but I don’t think its ever too late– If you are not healthy right now you just can’t accept that’s the way it is going to be.

For many years as my own weight swelled from 170 pounds when I was 26 years old to 245 pounds when I was 46, I don’t know if I accepted being overweight as much as I was oblivious to it. I felt like I fit right in with most other adult males 35 to 50 with an ever expanding mid-section. The wake up call for me were all of the health issues I began to develop.  The true motivation for me to change my lifestyle and way of thinking was not to lose weight, get healthier or even look better. My life was slowly crumbling before my eyes and I had to change my behavior. I could no longer partake in a carefree, lackadaisical, take each day as it comes lifestyle. I needed to develop structure and discipline particularly when it comes to my health and fitness. And I have been trying to accomplish this one day at a time

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